Thursday, July 31, 2014

The Gadfly will have a few choice thoughts to share about this story tomorrow . . .

JULY 30, 2014, 4:16 PM EDT

House Republicans are calling on the Justice Department to investigate potential wrongdoing by ex-IRS official Lois Lerner after they uncovered a private email she sent in 2012 referring to fringe conservatives as "assholes."

The Gadfly simply finds himself incapable of being shocked any more by finding out what kind of human scum permeate the ranks of today's modern conservative movement.

Be that as it may, it's still just a bit jarring to say the least to discover that the NRA's top legal counsel is a self-confessed, convicted murderer and a man with a remorselessly violent history of using guns to terrify people.

Observe:

The gun Dowlut unearthed less than a half mile from the murder scene was a Webley Mark VI, a British-made six-shot military revolver commonly sold in the United States after World War II. The Indiana State Police Laboratory determined that it had fired a bullet recovered from Yocum's body, one retrieved from her apartment, and another found at the pawnshop.

The following morning, Dowlut was charged with first-degree murder. A year and a half later, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder. Before the judge handed down a life sentence, he asked the defendant if there was any reason why he shouldn't be put away. Dowlut replied, "I am not guilty." A day later, the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City registered Dowlut, now 19, as prisoner number 33848.

Less than six years later, Robert Dowlut would be a free man—his murder conviction thrown out by the Indiana Supreme Court because of a flawed police investigation. The court ordered a new trial, but one never took place. Dowlut would return to the Army and go on to earn college and law degrees. Then he would embark on a career that put him at the epicenter of the movement to transform America's gun laws.

Go read the whole disgusting story. There's a an old saying that says "birds of a feather flock together," which in it's most simplistic definition means that people who have similar characteristics or similar interests will often choose to ally with each other.

Ergo - it makes all of the goddamn sense in the world that a man with a past history of gun violence and who had no compunction at all about shooting an unarmed woman in the back and killing her, would feel right at home servicing the agenda of the blood-stained hands of the NRA and the cadre of soulless monsters who populate it's leadership infrastructure.

It's just more evidence for which The Gadfly feels wholly justified in believing unflinchingly that this current crop of conservatives, more than a handful of religious nuts living in caves in Afghanistan, is a much greater threat to our democracy as well as to prospects that this country will ever achieve any measurable state of lasting peace and domestic tranquility within it's own borders -- much less be a beacon of hope for the same to peoples abroad.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Wing nut radio personality Alex Jones has figured out why all of these undocumented Central American kids are pouring across our southern borders:

While much of the nation’s political class has spent the past few weeks debating what to do about the refugee crisis on the U.S. southern border, few have had the courage and integrity to ask the most important question of all: Are the dozens of miserable children currently behind held at the border merely the first wave of kids from South and Central America who are entering the U.S. in order to act as child soldiers in President Obama’s secret private army?

It’s awkward, sure. Asking may ruffle some feathers. But this is the kind of information that is vital for the healthy operation of a liberal democracy. And that’s why we need conspiracy theorist king and InfoWars media personality Alex Jones now more than ever.

“That’s like the African child slave soldiers,” Jones said during his radio show on Tuesday, responding to his guest William Gheen’s theory that the children at the border are willing tools of the despotic Obama because they crave “Obamaphones” and want to sign up for Obamacare.

“That’s how all those African countries are run, is off of poor kids,” Jones continued. “[T]hey grab [poor kids] at 12 and give a machine gun. Obama talks about his national security force, just as big, just as strong as our military. It’s so bold, but when you look at it, they really are doing that.”

Indeed, Jones and his guest’s logic was impeccable, neatly and persuasively showing why a secret army of refugee children was the perfect tool with which Obama could destroy America.

To summarize the analysis of Mr. Jones -- basically, President Obama is deliberately allowing these kids . . .

[ Obama's Army ]

. . . to enter our country illegally because it is all part of his nefarious and diabolical plan to amass a secret army of heavily armed, child soldiers, outfitted with "Obamaphones" and new enrollees in Obamacare, to take away your freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedoms!!, and guns and, herd you all in to FEMA re-education camps.

Sigh . . . . .

The Gadfly understands that the first instinct of sane people reading this is to laugh out loud, but don't spend too much time laughing, for this country is chock full of idiots and paranoid schizophrenic numbskulls who are hardcore believers in this nonsense -- and thanks to our gutless and craven political leaders they have unfettered access to lots of guns.

Monday, July 28, 2014

Looks like Sister Mary Caribou got in to the Teabagger liquor cabinet and had herself a wee bit too much Moose Liver Schnaps before ascending the stage at a recent gathering of wing nuts . . . .

Good Lord, what the heck was Sarah Palin drinking (or smoking) before she delivered her twisted, slurring 30-minute rant at the Western Conservative Conference in Denver, Colo. last week? The stupid. It huuuuuuurts.

This bizarre, rambling, tossed word salad of a speech proves Palin’s swift and very public descent into madness is nearly complete. At some moments, Palin even appears to attempt stand-up comedy.

Right-wing talk radio host Dan Caplis introduced Palin as “one of the most influential political figures of the 21st century,” and as a heroine who has “stood up for you.” Alas, the stumbling Palin barely seemed able to stand up even for herself that evening.

Go watch the video, if that is, you can stomach the equivalent of the non-stop sound of fingernails being scraped across a chalkboard. As an added bonus, go to YouTube and watch the video, then scroll through the comments section just to see how deluded Mama Grizzly's boot licking sycophants are -- it's downright fucking unnerving to think that those people are running around this country and procreating.

How someone like Michele Bachmann ever arrives at a place of influence in our society, with energetic followers no less, is a mystery that The Gadfly will, in all accepted honesty, likely never find the answer to.

Observe:

Bachmann’s plan? Send those children to labor camps, which she warmly refers to as“Americanization Facilities,”with the goal of having them pay off their past, present, and future care expenses, while assimilating them into American culture. And in exchange for that labor, the children would be fast-tracked on a path to citizenship.

During an interview with Minnesota’s Twin Cities News Talk, Bachmann revealed her plan while addressing the border crisis. “I’m calling on all of us, Obama and Congress and everyone, to chip in and build special new facilities…`Americanization’ facilities, if you will. And we’d send these kids to these facilities, in Arizona and Texas and wherever else. And we’d get private sector business leaders to locate to those facilities and give these children low-risk jobs to do. And they’d learn about the American way of life, earn their keep, and everyone wins in the end.”

Conservative radio host Jason Lewis asked Bachmann about the camps, and what life might be like for the children sent to them. “Well, we’d of course want these facilities to be ideal, you know, for the children to work and learn. They’d spend half of their day working, and the other half learning what every child should learn, and that’s English, you know, English and American history. And as soon as they learn English with some degree of fluency, they can attend local schools, maybe with a voucher program, or something like that. And then they could work when they aren’t in school.”

“I think this is a great way to bring businesses into the Texas and Arizona areas, and maybe other states struggling with low employment opportunities, thanks mostly to Obama’s policies,” Bachmann continued. “Once these kids grow up, they’d leave a big gap of new job opportunities, and that’s what this is all about. It’s about opportunity, not just for these kids but for the American people. It helps the businesses, and if we can raise fifty-thousand God-fearing, English-speaking Americans, who understand real American values, then I’d say it’s a job well done.”

Standby while The Gadfly attempts to wrap his mind around what this idiot woman is proposing . . .

"Americanization facilities" -- cute.

Let's, for the sake of masochism, examine Crazy Shelly's most awesomest idea a bit more in depth, shall we?

"And we'd send these kids to these facilities, in Arizona and Texas and wherever else." Wherever else?? Guantanamo Bay perhaps? That place is about as "wherever else" as you can get, and you just know Shelly's Teabagger friends wouldn't mind that one bit.

"And we'd get private sector business leaders to locate to those facilities and give these children low-risk jobs to do." Yes - because, as rumor has it, The Koch Brothers are in the market for procuring a workforce to manage their ever growing piles of petcoke tailings, and free child labor is right up their alley.

"And they'd learn about the American way of life, earn their keep, and everyone wins in the end." Shelly is right - what 7 or 8 year old wouldn't learn about the "American way of life" by living in an enclosed labor camp, toiling away the day for some good old fashioned, conservative businessmen to earn their right to a tray of our wonderful corporate provided institutional food?

"And as soon as they learn English with some degree of fluency, they can attend local schools, maybe with a voucher program, or something like that. And they could work when they aren't in school." English courses by day, tending the Koch Brother's tar sands yards by night - it's genius, for everyone knows that all work and no play make good little Americans out of brown skinned kids.

"It helps the businesses, and if we can raise fifty-thousand, God-fearing, English-speaking Americans, who understand real American values, then I'd say it's a job well done." And there it is -- the true motivation behind Shelly the Teabagger's "humanitarian" interest in these poor Central American immigrant kids. It's all about what's good for the business men and growing the ranks of Teabagistan by indoctrinating the little shits in to the wholly fucked up world view of Michele Bachmann and her Taliban-like cult of socio-economic terrorist comrades.

Lord help those kids if the Bachmann's of the world ever get the opportunity to hook their poisonous claws in to the napes of their little necks.

Financial expert and senior economics journalist for CNBC, Steve Liesman, tells Tea Party Godfather and Gordon Gekko cum swallower Rick Santelli that he's a lying, bullshitting, worthless piece of shit --- well --- not in those words exactly, but watch the video and you'll see what The Gadfly is talking about.

Santelli became famous for his televised "Tea Party" rant on the floor of the Stock Exchange on February 19, 1999, the day BEFORE Obama's first inauguration speech.

Never mind the reality that Wall Street and the DOW have recovered and prospered handsomely during Obama's tenure and as Steve Liesman correctly noted, Santelli was wrong about everything he boldly claimed, but it really has become standard practice that you can't put truth and reality in front of a teabagger and expect them to accept it for what it is. But boy -- it sure is fun to rile up the uneducated rubes just because you fucking can huh?

Nice to see some media people beginning to call bullshit on the frauds who started all of this "Tea Party" flim-flammery to begin with for a change --- -perhaps the tide is turning against these connivers.

(CNN) – Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, made a surprising suggestion Thursday night: If he had been elected in 2000, there might not have been a war in Iraq.

The Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war, who lost his race for the GOP nomination that year but went on to become his party’s nominee in 2008, made his comments in a far-reaching interview in CNN and National Journal’s “Politics On Tap” event, after this reporter asked him what would be different if he had won either in 2000 or 2008.

On 2008, McCain said “national security” would be different, and he delineated the many ways he would have done things differently from the victor, President Barack Obama. But when asked about 2000, McCain made the most surprising remarks. “You’ll find this surprising,” he said, “but I think I would’ve been more reluctant to commit American troops.”

McCain was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq; one of his sons fought in the war.

FACT: John McCain was quick to jump on the Bush/Cheney attack Iraq bandwagon after 9/11 and he steadfastly supported that war and even wanted to prolong it. The man is either a colossal fucking liar or the advance of Alzheimer's in his brain is in the next stage of destroying his memory (which, btw, would certainly go a long way toward explaining Sarah Palin).

And not only that, this is the guy that was practically jizzing in his old man drawers in wanting Obama to go in and bomb Iran, Syria, Libya and now get militarily involved with the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

The man's views on foreign policy should be taken with a sizable grain of salt these days. And the fact that the mainstream media seem all to happy to continue giving the obviously delusional old geezer a public platform to spew his nonsense from, tells you everything you need to know about the integrity and competence of your national media.

Charlie Pierce wonders what price the country's soul will pay if we allow the oligarchs and the moneyed elites to privatize a basic necessity of human life and transform it in to a Wall Street commodity:

It is now past cliche to say that you never thought you'd have to relitigate, say, birth control, or child labor, but 30 years of conservative dominance leavened with just a touch here and there of centrist Democratic control, three decades of bad ideas prevailing even when they don't necessarily win - all of this should have taught us one thing: there was nothing that was produced by a century of progressive policy that was considered to be settled by the people trying to unravel it. (This includes Social Security, which, because of its inherent power, was able to hold off both Republican privatizers and Democratic "reformers," at least for now.)

But, seriously, water?

We are litigating whether citizens have a right to water?

Here?

Now?

The whole thing sounds preposterous. But, since last spring, some 15,000 Detroit residents, living under a special manager because Governor Rick Snyder decided that democracy was too damn expensive, have had their access to water denied. Most of them were in arrears on their water bills; the cutoff for the cutoff was two months or $150 behind, which is ridiculously low, especially in a city with 23 percent unemployment and with 38 percent of people living below the poverty line. The shutoffs are estimated to be affecting 100,000 people in one way or another.

But the special manager, a jumped-up pol named Kevyn Orr, is seen by most people here as playing a longer game than just knuckling the city's poor. With the city in bankruptcy, a lot of the people in Detroit are figuring that Orr is trying to get rid of the $5.7 billion in water department debt as a prelude to privatizing the water supply for the city. And, given our experience with private prisons, doesn't that fill you with optimism?

PELHAM, Ala. (AP) - A member of the gun rights group BamaCarry got to vote in Shelby County while wearing a holstered pistol, but police later asked him to leave the front of the polling place.

Robert Kennedy showed up with his gun Tuesday at the Pelham First Baptist Church Annex. A sign on the annex said firearms were prohibited, but election officials allowed Kennedy to vote while wearing his gun. Kennedy and members of his group later stood outside the polling place until Pelham police asked them to leave at the request of a poll official.

Kennedy was turned away from the polling place during the primary June 3.

So basically, gun goon guy feels sufficiently fearful enough of whatever commie terrorist shadows that frighten him outside of his bunker, such that he finds the need to show up at his sleepy, small town church voter polling precinct packing heat. When the locals politely ask him to leave his arms outside, he refuses and so being the genteel southerners that they are, they reluctantly allow the militant gun goon guy to exercise his constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.

But as you could probably guess dear readers, that wasn't enough for gun goon guy, so having felt affronted by the poll officials initially asking him to please refrain from taking his killing toy in to the church polling place, gun goon guy runs home and gathers up some of his other armed gun goon pals and they all go over to the church and stand around outside menacingly "observing" people arriving to the polling place to exercise their own constitutionally guaranteed right to vote. Well, the polling folks at the church rightly felt the tactics of the gun goon guys were intimidating and unsafe to poll workers and arriving voters, and so they called the local police who came along and shooed the gun goon guys away -- not entirely unlike urban cops shooing away gangster thugs from loitering around city street corners.

How exactly is this behavior any different from the bullying and thuggish behavior that the Taliban utilize to intimidate and bully their people from daring to think and act on behalf of their own individual interests? It isn't if you want to know The Gadfly's unabashed opinion.

Frankly -- The Gadfly feels not one iota of shame in saying that the real threat to this country's destiny isn't 50,000 Central American kids illegally crossing in to America and turning themselves in to law enforcement in the desperate hope of being offered a chance to salvage their violence ravaged lives and become productive citizens.

No -- the real threat to the destiny of this nation's democracy, and a peaceful future, is from the gun goon guys like this clown and his clown posse of ammosexual buddies. They have already proven that they feel that their agenda allows them to use violence and threats of violence against anyone who opposes them or dares to question their motives.

The most disturbing aspect of all of this bullshit though is that these itchy trigger-fingered oafs actually believe that they themselves are the one and only true American patriots and the saviors of the Great American Experiment, which in and of itself would make The Gadfly laugh uproariously if it all weren't so pathetically sad and perverse.

And for the gazillionth time, The Gadfly is not anti-gun, but he most definitely is anti morons, and more so, anti bullying morons with guns.

Those dear readers who have been hanging around this shitty little blog for awhile now know that The Gadfly has talked about the subject of the frighteningly accelerating militarization of America's civilian law enforcement entities and how it does not portend well for the advancement of democracy, and that it is in fact, an ominous sign that there may be a need for society to put aside their trivial political and tribal differences at some point to unite and consider the reality that other than peaceful means may be required to preserve that democracy for future generations.

It's nice to see a national figure recognize that which has been obvious to a great many for so long, even though it is only a comedian doing so:

And just as an aside, Maher's point about how the Tea Party should be "freaking out" about this encroaching culture of transforming the nation's civilian police forces in to standing armies, quite honestly, really didn't resonate with The Gadfly all that much.

The Tea Party have their own deeply embedded streak of cruel authoritarianism in them that is a byproduct of the combined zealotry of their conservative world view and their fundamentalist Christianity, so while they may rail against the police militarization to some extent, it is only because they yearn to replace it with their own tyrannical system of governance and law enforcement.

But good on Bill Maher for having the balls to talk about this subject on national television and at least ask Americans to consider the motive behind and the consequences of what the fuck is going on with it.

It's not hard to detect the sense of loathing that drips from the satire that Colbert aims squarely at the wing nuts. It's nothing short of glaring. It goes without saying that The Gadfly shares that sense of loathing.

Jon Stewart unceremoniously, albeit hilariously, dumps all of the right wing, fist shaking threats to impeach Obama in to the wood chipper of comedic mockery -- and with an extra dose of lampooning of Caribou Barbie and her frightfully birdbrained insipidness, it's an instant classic.

Wasting no time in demonstrating what smug dicks they are, conservatives are already snidely hinting that Obama conspired with . . . .umm - somebody. . . . to shoot down the Malaysian airliner today in order to deflect media attention away from his child immigrant, IRS and Benghazi!Benghazi!!Benghazi!!! "scandals."

Unsurprisingly, the lead conservative jackal spewing the nonsense is that bastion of probity and ethical behavior, Rush Limbaugh:

LIMBAUGH: It's a Malaysian Airlines jet and can you -- I've got the British Open on the top menu, monitor, I haven't had CNN on all day, what do you bet they have broomed everything and are covering wall-to-wall the Malaysian Airlines flight shot down by a missile? This is, I mean, you talk about -- I don't want to appear to be callous here, folks, but you talk about an opportunity to abandon the bad Obama news at the border, and no, I'm not suggesting anything other than how the media operates.

"I don't want to appear to be callous here, folks..." --- LOL! That train left the station eons ago Limpy. You are a fat, disgusting, drug addicted and callous fuck - period - and no matter what you say, or what you do until the day that you die, that reality is immutable.

"You talk about an opportunity to abandon the bad Obama news at the border..." --- Sigh...Obama's "bad news" at the border? Oh - you mean the child migrant issue that was created in large part because of a law that George W. Bush signed which dictates how the federal government can lawfully deal with immigrant children from non-border countries. Whatever doofus.

"I'm not suggesting anything other than how the media operates..." --- The fuck you aren't, you deceitful prick. Your brain dead followers know exactly what you are insinuating and the proof will reveal it's self in the coming days as even more right wing morons, like Alex Jones and the Tea Party nitwits echo your wholly gratuitous conspiracy idiocy all over the media.

The Gadfly has gotten so good at predicting the public buffoonery of these conservative assholes that he actually scares himself at times with just how uncanny his prescience is as to their impending behavior.

Anyhow, as for Rush, he really ought to lay off the Oxycontin once and for all. It's turning what remains of his diminutive lizard brain in to oatmeal mush.

One of the original lineup members of the seminal punk rock band The Ramones, Tommy Ramone passed away yesterday. Only mid-history drummer replacement Marky remains.

The Gadfly tips his hat to The Ramones for showing him that you don't have to go along with the crowd in order to be someone. Sometimes, being someone is simply all about being antagonistic and unaccommodating to the status quo. Either way, fuck 'em if they don't like it. The world is full of self absorbed assholes running around trying to impress other self absorbed assholes. The Ramones showed us that none of that bullshit mattered. What mattered was each and every one of us being ourselves and being true to ourselves. Period.

Bill Maher hits on a point that is near and dear to The Gadfly's dirty old fucking hippie heart -- namely the penchant of conservatives, who love to claim the "moral" high ground, to just outright lie about shit and when caught in lies, not only refuse to admit they were lying, but continue to perpetuate the lie even further.

Observe:

It's maddening and the mainstream media constantly lets them get away with it, which is why The Gadfly has absolutely ZERO faith in his country's media to accurately and truthfully inform him -- they are, for all practical purposes, a dead entity to The Gadfly.

The hootenest-tootenest shootinest bobtailed wildcats in the west is ready to shoot them some illegal varmints:

CATHERINE THOMPSON – JULY 12, 2014, 1:22 PM EDT

The leader of an effort to rally a Bundy Ranch-style militia at the Texas border said this week that his troops were fighting for "national sovereignty."

"We have patriots all across this country who are willing to sacrifice their time, their monies, even quit their jobs to come down and fight for freedom, liberty and national sovereignty," Chris Davis said, as quoted by Rio Grande Valley TV station KRGV.

Davis would not tell KRGV how many members make up his group, Operation Secure Our Border, nor offer an outline of when and where the group planned the deploy along the Texas-Mexico border.

Davis, who has been identified as a member of the Second Amendment activist group Open Carry Texas, also reportedly released a YouTube video recently in which he issued a warning to those migrants crossing the border illegally: "Get back across the border or you will be shot."

Make no mistake dear readers, when these Bundy ranch sycophants talk about "national sovereignty," what they are really referring to is the fantasy America that they have manufactured in the deepest and darkest recesses of their tiny, bigoted, racist, and fascist minds.

And you truly just have to laugh at the "leader" of this militia group threatening to shoot any migrants he comes across. First of all, regardless of whether the migrant has crossed the border legally or not, shooting an unarmed person, citizen or not, is still regarded as a crime of murder in this country, so yeah -- go ahead tough guy, shoot a skinny, dehydrated, starving and unarmed Guatemalan woman in front of her kids and let's find out how the rest of America responds to your macho "heroism."

And besides, The Gadfly wonders, -- who died and appointed this swaggering buffoon border Sheriff?

Fucking morons.

The Gadfly didn't think it possible, but his deep-seated loathing of these stupid, jagoff right wing nuts escalates incrementally by the day.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Climate change is still a contentious issue, as some people and organizations deny it is even happening, or concede the world is getting warmer, but it's not because of humans.

The U.S. military is not one of those organizations.

Writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a recent Op-Ed, Rear Adm. David Titley (Ret.) — who was initially a climate skeptic — worked on a Navy task force to study the issue, which he calls "an accelerating threat to national security."

Ok -- so the U.S. military is now sufficiently alarmed enough to publicly acknowledge that climate change is indeed occurring, and that the primary cause is human activity. Not only that, they are taking it a step further and openly stating that the seriousness of it is "an accelerating threat" to America's national security.

That pretty much leaves the Tea Dummies, the Koch brothers and their fellow fossil-fuel industry polluters, along with Fox "News" and their viewers, as the only dipshits left on the face of the planet who still believe it's all a big hoax by evil liberal scientists to steal their Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom!!!

When the last chapters in the story of the demise of human civilization are recorded, the above mentioned morons are going to be assigned the bulk of the blame for that fateful outcome - no doubts whatsoever.

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Ahhh -- ain't that sweet? Passing along the custom of gun goonery to the younger generation:

KITTRELL, N.C. — Vance County sheriff’s investigators said a family argument that turned deadly Monday night began when an 84-year-old man shot and wounded his 49-year-old son. The elderly man was then shot to death by his 11-year-old grandson, deputies said.

Charges are pending.

Deputies were called to a home at 430 Cricket Creek Lane in Kittrell about 7 p.m. They discovered the homeowner, 84-year-old Lloyd Woodlief, had been shot once with a 12-gauge shotgun. He died a short time later.

Little Jim Bob sees his daddy get shot by Grampa with a pistol and so little Jim Bob grabs his .12 gauge critter splatterin' gun and blasts a hole through Grampa the size of the Lincoln tunnel.

But hey -- it's all good right? This is the dream and vision of the modern-day American family that the NRA and the conservative wingnuts have for the country, so they truly should be proud of their accomplishments at making gun goonery a modern-day, cherished family tradition.

From The Gadfly's view, it isn't difficult to see where all of this gun goonery business, if allowed to spread like the cancer it is, will lead the country to in the end. The outcome, to sane observers, is pretty clear, and it's quite ugly, and is pre-ordained unless the sane people stand up and collectively say - enough is enough.

Somebody over at dead guy Breitbart's yellow journalism outfit decided it would be cute to give Caribou Barbie space on their graffiti wall to wail for Obama's immediate impeachment -- in her typically cretinous word-salad manner of course:

The Gadfly is much too tired to pull out his Louisville Slugger and take a swing at Tiffany of the Tundra's low hanging fruit idiocy, so he will defer to the inimitable Charlie Pierce to handle the affair. Pierce's takedown is standard fare for him as it relates to Palin, but go read it anyway. Suffice to say that the last line of his observation is one that The Gadfly has been expressing since the day that Grampa McCain foisted the boorish Wasilla Wombat on to the national political stage:

PIERCE:If you think she's a leader, you're an idiot and I feel sorry for you.

Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Perhaps it's simply The Gadfly's penchant for being effortlessly entertained, but hot dog if there isn't something beautifully karmic about seeing the old school Republican establishment and the Teabaggers in their caucus tear each other's sphincters apart over who the real racists among themseves are:

The head of the Missouri Republican Party on Tuesday asked Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus to appoint a task force to investigate what he called “racially divisive ads and robocalls” critical of state Sen. Chris McDaniel in the Republican runoff for U.S. Senate in Mississippi, marking the latest instance of lingering intra-party discord following Sen. Thad Cochran’s narrow victory over McDaniel last month.

Missouri GOP Chairman Ed Martin e-mailed letters to Priebus and RNC members Tuesday afternoon expressing concerns over ads reported by Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper that sought to link McDaniel to a Ku Klux Klan ally, suggested that the tea party has “racist” ideas and warned that a vote for McDaniel could mean losing food stamps and other government programs.

Martin’s concerns came a day after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) slammed the “D.C. machine” for “racially charged false attacks” against McDaniel. And they arrived as McDaniel’s campaign was gearing up to challenge the results of the election, which were certified Monday.

The Gadfly forewarned the GOP way back in the early part of 2009 that the Republican party would rue the day that they cast their lot in with the Teabaggers, and yet they persisted in allowing that rabid bunch of rottweilers in to their party tent anyway. And surprise! surprise! -- they are now acting all shocked and dismayed that the rottweilers whom they befriended are biting the hands that fed them, and gleefully shredding the GOP big tent with their sharpened claws.

The Gadfly hates (not really, but let's pretend) to tell the GOP poobahs that he told them so, but he did . . .

Monday, July 7, 2014

This is prima facie evidence of just how destructive and selfish these modern-day conservative jagoffs truly are.

Observe:

By Ben Lawson

It's a trend now big enough to put a name to. Many Americans are rigging their trucks to intentionally emit large plumes of toxic smoke. It's called "rolling coal," and it's meant as a political statement.

The truck owner rigs the diesel engine to emit large amounts of black soot. One truck owner labeled his vehicle "Prius repellant" and took a video as he aimed smoke at a car behind him. (Via YouTube / doug coons)

For some, it's a form of protest against environmentalism, striking back against efforts to lower carbon emissions and overall pollution. For others, it's just for kicks. (Via YouTube / Renato Sanchez)

The relatively new trend has skyrocketed in recent years. Google analytics shows the search volume for "rolling coal" increasing sevenfold since February 2011. (Via Google)

Here's a photo of one of these emotionally immature twats practicing his infantile version of "freedom" and liberty:"

The Gadfly has a couple of observations about this practice. First, is it any wonder that the offspring of these knuckleheads tend to be in the lowest learning percentile of their educational institutes? Gee - it couldn't possibly result from the brain damaging effects of being around imbecilic parents who believe that pumping noxious coal soot in to the child's breathing environment is a laugh-riot and will build character in said child could it??

Secondly, what about the rights of the people driving in their communities or on the roads, which we all pay taxes for, to not have to be stuck behind or beside some toothless, beer-belly jiggling, Fox News indoctrinated, ammosexual slob who, "just for kicks," is riding around in his monster truck deliberately spewing black, toxic, coal soot fumes like an 1890's steel factory.

The Gadfly is so over this teabagger political movement -- along with whatever causes that motivated them to slither out from under their rocks to begin with -- not to mention just about everything they claim to stand for and believe in. The debate is undeniably over as it relates to trying to find common ground with them on issues important to All Americans. There quite simply is no extant hope for reasonable compromise with these people to be had. They are certifiably, batshit fucking insane and the only remaining good thing that can be derived of of their present existence in our culture and society, is living long enough to see the day of the wholesale destruction of their socio-political movement and watching them exiled back in to the caves and under the rocks whence they emerged from.

Lastly -- whatever point that these clowns are attempting to make here regarding their own vision of "refreshing the tree of liberty" is completely obliterated by the irony that even the most well watered and well fed plant or tree is going to perish in quite a horrible fashion if it's ecosystem is destroyed by unregulated, unchecked amounts of toxins and pollutants.

Thursday, July 3, 2014

On this very patriotic and nationalistic 4th of July weekend, as you gulp them burgers and quaff them beers, ponder George Carlin's explanation of why patriotism and nationalism is so supremely attractive to chest thumping half-wits who couldn't think their way out of a grocery sack:

The Gadfly had a very upset reader of one of his blog posts send him an e-mail this past week. The anonymous e-mailer was not happy with one of The Gadfly's postings which was all about mocking the e-mailer's gun owning/fetishist friends and so he called The Gadfly all kinds of curse words and hurled bizarrely unseemly epithets and threatened to use the dread Google to track down who The Gadfly really is and find him some day and put a hurt locker hurting on him. Sigh . . .

All of which simply made The Gadfly feel like the brave and virtuous Black Knight in this classic scene ......

According to its own ticker, DraftMitt.org has gathered more than 28,000 names of people who want Mitt Romney to run for president in 2016. That isn't anywhere near the 2 million-plus claimed by Ready for Hillary. It's only about a quarter of the interest needed to earn an official response from the White House (if it were on the We The People website, which requires 100,000 signatures.)

But it's not nothing.

Which begs the question: Who's running this conservative (and low-budget) version of Ready for Hillary? That's the rub: Nobody seems to know.

It has a professional website (not paid for by Mitt Romney, as it makes very clear) and growing following. The number of signatures stood in the mid-10,000's when TPM first visited last month; now it's approaching 30,000.

Please --- whoever these people are --- just knock it off, and while you're at it, get a productive fucking life --- will ya? Mitt Romney has been trying for the better part of two decades to worm and buy his way to the presidency. And the American people have consistently and resoundingly told him to go fucking pound sand. What part about "Fuck NO!" don't you people comprehend??

Listen -- The Gadfly gets it. The Mittster is your guy. You love his little vulture capitalist heart and it just kills you that he and Queen Ann aren't ruling their gilded Washington, D.C. throne as their Mormon prophets have portended.

It's a goddamn tribal thing -- and frankly, the Democrats aren't above the same behavior.

Hell, The Gadfly, believe him or not, honestly is not a fan of Hillary running in 2016 for pretty much the same reason. There's too many snooty, cocksure, old school tribal liberals who are convinced that she's the chosen one simply by virtue of her political pedigree.

The Gadfly acknowledges that Hillary would be a better choice than Mitt, but come the fuck on -- if liberals are going to retain any measure of credibility, the better choice for a woman candidate, by far, would be Mass. Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren scares the living fucking shit out of the Wall Street snakes and cockroaches because she knows which closets most of their financial chicanery skeletons are hidden in, and, she isn't afraid to talk publicly about it.

As well, and many people don't know this, but Warren is a former Republican, however, when she observed the criminality that Wall Street and the financial services industry was engaging in the run up to the 2008 world financial collapse, and observed how the Republicans were gleefully enabling it, she ditched the GOP and joined the Democrats (not that they are a whole lot more innocent, but compared to the GOP, they're practically fucking angels).

But back to the point of this post --- Mitt Romney? For President again in 2016? . . . . Sigh . . . .The Gadfly would rather be tossed naked in to a swimming pool filled with double edged razor blades, broken shards of glass, and the Kardashian bimbos than be put through that brain numbing misery again.

How many times do the American people have to watch the stale re-run of this sad outcome movie?....

As the number of American troops sent to Iraq nearly doubled on Monday and the White House continues to flex its executive privilege to make unilateral military decisions,citizens and lawmakers alike are raising concerns and objections over the escalating American presence in the country, asking: Are we nearing 'mission creep'?

"A continued escalation of U.S. commitment in Iraq is troubling," said Iraq war veteran and U.S. Senator John Walsh (D-Mont.) in a statement Tuesday.

Echoing the concerns of many, the lawmaker continued: "The President has promised to prevent ‘mission creep.’ But how many Americans will we deploy? How much money will we spend? How long until we demand the Iraqi people stand up and defend their own government?"

Walsh's comments came a day after it was announced that President Obama had deployed 300 additional troops, as well as more helicopters and armed Predator drones, to the war-torn nation. Operating under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Obama has thus far sent roughly 650 American troops to Iraq. The legislation permits the president to send up to 770 troops to the country without Congressional approval.

During a Pentagon press conference on Tuesday, press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby refused to rule out the possibility that more troops would be sent.

Ok -- let's get something clear -- whatever happens as a result of America once again poking it's nosy nosenheimer stick in to the middle-east hornet's nest, it's on Obama's shoulders at this point. No more blaming the original Bush fuckuppery.

If Obama and his handlers didn't learn anything from Bush's colossal mistakes in Iraq, then when the whole fucking place goes up in a fireball of internecine warfare on a much more vast regional scale than just within the borders of Iraq alone, Obama owns it outright. And if that scenario comes to pass, his legacy is certain to be haunted by it, and rightly so, for a generation.

"Our approach has always been to follow local laws, and of course, we will continue to do so," Target said in a statement Wednesday. "But starting today we will also respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target—even in communities where it is permitted by law."

Whether open-carry activists will comply with Target's request appears to be an open question. One of the first to comment on Target's posted statement was Kory Watkins—a leader of a Texas open-carry group that's conducted provocative demonstrations, used disturbing intimidation tactics against women, and harassed a Marine veteran—who said he plans to pack heat at Target "today and tomorrow and whatever days I want."

What a flaming fucking selfish asshole -- and a childish one at that. A business respectfully asks this person and other of his ilk to please not bring loaded firearms in to their establishments, just like they ask people to not enter their businesses without shirts and shoes, which is entirely within their rights because they own the fucking business, and the teatard gun goon guys throw a cry-baby tantrum and threaten to defy them, just because, as a flaming asshole, he can.

The gun goon man-child screams, "Going back to Target with my gun today and tomorrow and whatever days I want."

That is these fuckhead's version of freedom dear readers ---- freedom for them to do whatever the fuck they want, regardless of the freedoms of others to not have to be subjected to their asininity and intimidation and feel safe in their communities.

The Gadfly has built up a visceral loathing of these jagoffs.

The gun crowd was pretty much just fine until the Tea Bagging monkey brains came along and decided that their arrogant interpretation of their precious Amendment trumped every societal norm that has existed since the birth of the nation and currently exists today.

Shit -- just look at what happened the first day the state of Georgia's new ridiculously lax open carry gun law went in to effect the other day:

VALDOSTA — On the first day of the new Georgia Safe Carry Protection Act, a misunderstanding between two armed men in a convenience store Tuesday led to a drawn firearm and a man’s arrest.

“Essentially, it involved one customer with a gun on his hip when a second customer entered with a gun on his hip,” said Valdosta Police Chief Brian Childress.

At approximately 3 p.m. Tuesday, police responded to a call regarding a customer dispute at the Enmark on the corner of Park Avenue and North Lee Street.

A man carrying a holstered firearm entered the store to make a purchase. Another customer, also with a holstered firearm, approached him and demanded to see his identification and firearms license, according to the Valdosta Police Department report.

The customer making demands for ID pulled his firearm from its holster but never pointed it at the other customer, who said he was not obligated to show any permits or identification.

He demanded the man’s ID again. Undeterred by the drawn gun, the man paid for his items, left the store and called for police.

Authorities arrested Ronald Williams, 62, on a charge of disorderly conduct, related to the pulling of a weapon inside of the store, according to the VPD. Police confiscated Williams’ weapon and took him to the Lowndes County Jail.

The police chief said no one can demand a person to show their gun permit. Under the new law, he as police chief and his officerscannot demand to see a firearms permit, Childress said.

The Gadfly deliberately bolded and color highlighted that last sentence because it is just simply mind numbingly insane. There is no ambiguity here --- per the Georgia GOP's open carry law edict, the police, if by perchance they see someone walking into a store or a bank with a .357 Magnum strapped to their sides, are prohibited, by this Republican law, from questioning the individual or demanding to see proof of their permit.

Lol. The Gadfly simply just has to laugh out loud at this shit, because in a sane world an ass-backward law such as this would have been laughed out of whatever legislature it was submitted to. Apparently though, the Teatards have such a grip on the GOP majority in the state of Georgia that insanity and stupidity and ignorance and dumbfuckery are causes to be championed and the citizens of Georgia might just as well get used to seeing monkey-brained gun goons (not knowing of course anything of their intentions) strolling in to their local restaurants, their shopping malls, their financial institutes, or just ambling about their community armed to the fucking teeth.

And when that first massacre (because The Gadfly and you all know it is going to happen) occurs because some disgruntled nut decides that he's had enough of the world treating him like shit and takes his Tec-9 fully automatic assault pistol in to a mall, because the cops couldn't stop him from doing so, and goes ballistic and kills a bunch of innocent people -- oh how the NRA and the right wingers will bemoan their nonsensical idiocy that if only everyone in the mall had been carrying their own Tec-9's, the massacre would have been prevented.

Sigh . . . . . . . the dumbness of the people of this country is overwhelmingly depressing at times, but The Gadfly isn't giving up just yet. The Fox "News" 65 years, white male and older crowd is aging and they do make up a substantial portion of that Teatard crowd, so let's just hope that a lot of that specific demographic starts dying off sooner than projected, for as callous as it sounds, that just might be the saving grace for this country's future.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

This is what billionaire entrepreneur Nick Hanauer was talking about when he said that the oligarchs had seriously better begin to think about changing their greedy ways or it will be just a matter of time before the pitchfork wielding masses come spoiling for them, at which point unrepentant contrition will no longer be an option.

Observe:

The Great Recession and Not-So-Great Recovery have been bad news for most Americans, but some people have suffered more than others. We call those people "Southerners."

North Carolina and a handful of other Southern U.S. states saw the biggest increases in the number of people living in what are known as "poverty areas" between 2000 and 2010, according to a new Census Bureau report. Poverty areas are places where more than 20 percent of the people live below the federal poverty line, which varies by family size. For a family of four, the poverty line in most states is an annual income of $23,850.

Today, 25.7 percent of all Americans live in such areas, up from 18.1 percent in 2000, according to the report. Having a quarter of the nation living this way is a problem: Poverty areas are typically marked by "higher crime rates, poor housing conditions, and fewer job opportunities," the report points out.

Here's the map -- please tell The Gadfly what factor it is that appears to be the common denominator here:

That's right - the states with 30% or more (dark teal color) of their populace living in poverty are the deepest red, southern conservative states.

This is what 40 years of Reagan's trickle down economics combined with slashing taxes for the wealthy and mega corporations and deregulating the chicanery of the con artists on Wall Street has accomplished.

Basically, the objective that Osama Bin Laden failed to accomplish, namely the obliteration of the American way of life, has been co-opted by the American conservative movement, and by the look of things, their economic policies and governing ass-hattery appears to be entirely on track to turn the country in to the world's wealthiest, third-world shithole.

And yet people still vote them in to office, and The Gadfly, for the life of his dirty old fucking hippie ass, cannot fathom the sense of it, considering the reality of the conservative's massive and epic failure at governing and economics is directly and negatively impacting the lives of most of their adherents.

Good job America. And keep up the good work -- for the ancient Roman and Greek socioeconomic dynasties of yesteryear eagerly await your imminent enshrinement in to the pantheon of history's impressively failed empires.